A graduate and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences and Professor of Paleontology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Juan Luis Arsuaga is one of the world's leading paleontologists and the most important science communicator in Spain. Co-director of the Atapuerca research team, he has been awarded the Princess of Asturias Award, among many others.

In 1992 he discovered in the Sima de los Huesos the most complete skull in the fossil record of human evolution. He is the scientific director of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the United States. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Burgos, Zaragoza, and the Polytechnic of Valencia. He is the author of major publishing successes translated into multiple languages such as La especie elegida (1998), El collar del neandertal (1999), Amalur. Del átomo a la mente (2002), Vida, la gran historia (2019) or Nuestro cuerpo (2023) and together with Juan José Millás, of the books La vida contada por un sapiens a un neandertal (2020) and La muerte contada por un sapiens a un neandertal (2022).